Re: The Earth Goddess.

junk
Sabine writes:

Mark wrote about the earth goddess (citing EIEC - could you give me all the bibliographical facts, Mark - maybe with ISBN -, I'd like to try and get that book at last) :

Cribbed from amazon.com:
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture
by James Mallory (Editor), D. Q. Adams (Editor)
Our Price: $165.00
Hardcover illustrate edition (October 1997)
Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers; ISBN: 1884964982
It's an expensive book, and for the price, could have obviously been better copy-edited.

In Slavic, she was Mati Syra Zemlja ('mother moist earth'). She "is linguistically related with Latvian Zemes Mate, Lithuanian zemyna". In the south we encounter her as the Phrygian, Thracian and Greek Semele (themother of Dionysus by Zeus). The Zemes/zemyna/Semele word would all seem to be reflexes of PIE *dheghom, 'earth'.
I've been working on Minoan placenames and mythology for a while now, reaching at one point the question what my theories might add up to. I think I've just come across a point in Marks mail that can lead me further. Let me tell you in short what it's all about so you can tell me your opinion:
We have in Crete a recurring number of placenames of the pre-Greek kind ending in '-inthos', the Anatolian suffix meaning 'belonging to'.

Someone clarify this for me. I remember reading some time ago that the suffix -inth is non-Indo-European (tacking on an -os, of course, makes it a nice Greek noun).
I should also add that 'Semele' is borrowed into Greek via Thracian and/or Phyrgian. This accords rather well with the 'Asiatic' origin for Dionysus.

The most prominent - for archaeologists - of those places is Zominthos on Mt. Ida where a Minoan settlement was partly excavated (only a very small part). The site lies on a small plain with one of the very few springs of the whole region and is by its excavator understood to be something like a last station (on some kind of pilgrimage may be) on the way to the Idean cave (two hours walk up the mountain from there) where until Roman times was still a famous sanctuary of Zeus. This sanctuary in myth is said to have handed down to Zeus from his mother Rhea (probably meaning: it belonged to the Minoan mother goddess - or the like- before the Greek god took it over). The oldest finds in the cave go down far into Minoan times (it hasn't been totally excavated for final dates yet).
Now other place names in Crete (and all around the Aegean) also seem to contain the same 'name' (if it was a name): Zamin(d)os (Crete) Minthia (Crete) Mithous (Crete) Saminthos (Argolis) Minthe (Elis) Myndos (Caria). I've gone to see some of them and realized that from the surface finds (or attached mythology) they all seem to reach down into the Bronze Age. But the only 'goddess' that survives into Greek times connected with these names is the nymph Minthe/Mintha (the namegiver for the well known healing and ancient ritual plant mint). From all archaeological, mythological and plant lore information I had until now I had come to the conclusion that this name includes the idea of 'holy, watery earth'.
Now that I know of the name of the IE earth goddesses and their linguistical connection where (Zo)mi(n)-/(Sa)mi(n)- obviously fits in the line from zemyna to Semele (Pjotr will remember my plaguing him with questions to this subject for about half a year now), I also understand better why Dionysos fits into this scheme (a feeling I always had).
The oldest evidence for this name (no connections known, wine only conjectured) is in Linear B from Pylos (e.g. Xa 1419): di-wo-nu-so, but unfortunately only on fragments. So Mark is certainly not right when he says:
Dionysus might be a very late, feminized version of an IE god. If the women could not have a powerful goddess, they could content themselves with an effeminate woman-raised god of wine and orgiastic frenzy.

The best known mythical elements of this figure are (not as in later, decadent times only wine...) his dying (often by being torn apart: 'sparagmos') and resurrection, often connected with frenzied women (the later Greek menads- who did the tearing, by the way). His - obviously IE - name has as second unclear element which to my opinion is not a placename ('Nysa', name of several Anatolian towns, was supposed to be the place he came from) but the connection with his suffering (often connected with madness), ancient Greek nosos/nousos (Ionian), the word for illness or madness. The 'orgiasmos' of his followers was the moment (may be drug induced) of their symbolic union with their god to understand the cyclic nature of being, dying, being.

I accept these horrific stories as reasonable representations of ancient religious practices, but admit to a deep psychological aversion to taking them seriously. My aversion to these barbaric practices was shared by the later classical commentators.
Robert Graves translates Dionysus as 'lame god', which sounds like a title of Hephaestos. When you encounter 'lame', you think of hamstrung sacred kings, crippled to make it difficult for them to escape their eventual fate. In his notes to his treatment of Dionysus (chapter 27), Graves notes that " According to Pherecydes(178), Nysa means 'tree' ". It is also said to be the name of "Mt. Nysa in Libya", noted for grape growing.
Graves also notes that Dionysus seems to have been merged with Sabazius, a beer-god. The association of Dionysus with tragedy is well known; the word 'tragedy' can be seen to come from tragos, 'spelt', a grain used in beer-making.

From the Ionian coast (in the myth of Herakles and Omphale) and probably also already from Mycenean seals (cf. the Cretan myth of Leukippos, partly similar to the western Anatolian one) we know the subject of men in the guise of women and women changed to men. May be the symbolical assuming of the shape of the other sex for a while was part of the ancient Aegean religion, I would suppose with the function of better understanding the other - an interesting feature for a civilization that obviously managed to have little - if any - discrimination of either sex and may be for this reason was successful for such a long time.

Graves seems to think this was often a case of invading patriarchal IEs usurping the role of the priestess. He wore the priestesses vestments. We also have the story of Achilles in drag, hiding in the harem until Odysseus sounds the alarm.
For ceremonial garb, I suspect the distinction between men's dress and women's dress was not particularly sharp.

But let me also remind you of Stephanie's description of Ashtar/Ashtart in the eastern Mediterranean, also a case of changing sex (if may be for other reasons), and who was it who stated the changing sex of some northern gods (sorry I don't remember).
The Cretan Dionysos in later myth turned up under the name of Zagreus (killed by tearing apart), Hyakinthos (his pre-Greek name may be just meaning 'young man' - cf. Pjotr's explanation from 12/10/99 - he was killed young, too) and Zeus kretagenes, the Cretan god who died every year, a severe insult to the Greeks whose Zeus was naturally immortal (that's why they called the Cretans liars, a word the apostle Paulus reused, although he was travelling for a very similar re-dying, reborn god...). These figures are often paralleled with otherwise typically Anatolian figures as Attis (paredros of Kybele in her 'bisexual' form of Agdistis, the myth contains frenzy and tearing apart) or Adonis (paredros of Aphrodite bearing a Semitic name - adonai=lord - probably assimilated from Mesopotamian fertility myths. He is torn apart, too). Please note that in Greece (and maybe already in Crete) this young god changed into - one or several - animals before he was killed, usually in the form of a bull.
How about the northern earth goddesses - did they also sport a young man/hero/god on their side who had to be torn apart (Frazer sees them as reaping heroes) to secure nature's revival?

I've not read Frazer in a very long time (I wallowed/skimmed through the old original multi-volumed edition close to 30 years ago). I have not come across anything in my reading that suggests this as an explicitly PIE myth.
On the other hand, we are all aware of the ancient Celtic and Germanic bog-men, recovered in modern times, who display evidence of having been bludgeoned/hanged/drowned. It would seem these sacrificial victims were sometimes willing partners. You also wonder about Germanic and Celtic warriors (especially the latter) who made death in battle a point of religion, and if this is somehow a reflection of the hero-death found in the Mediterranean.
Mark.